


Pray God You Can Cope

by CreativelyCole



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Battle for Azeroth Spoilers, Coping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 05:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14743236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreativelyCole/pseuds/CreativelyCole
Summary: Just because Jaina has returned from exile doesn't mean she's okay.





	Pray God You Can Cope

She heard heavy breathing behind her, off-beat footsteps on the stone that told her who was approaching before she even turned her head.

Anduin was flushed and wide-eyed as he regarded her from the the door to the tower room.  “Oh, thank the Light I found you,” he breathed.

Both windows her open, allowing the biting Boralus air to cut right through her woolen dress.  Even from this high up in the keep, she could still hear the waves rolling over the rocks, taste the salt of the air as she inhaled deeply, folded arms rising and falling with her chest.  She watched as the king used his crutch to limp a few more steps towards her. He was too young for the crown he wore, the demons in his mind. At least she was past her prime, a bitter old witch that could hide in her tower without question.

“Everyone has been tearing the keep apart looking for you,” he continued.  He furrowed his brows. “We were worried.”

“I needed a quiet place… to think,” she told him.

He made his way to her side, leaning against the frigid stone wall.  “Aunt Jaina, I know better than to believe that,” he chided gently.

“Of course you do.”  She hadn’t the energy to sound rueful or laugh, even a little.

When enough moments slipped by with silence from the mage, his moved his gaze from the vast sea to her.  “Are you okay?”

She met her adopted nephew’s bright blue stare, having to lift her chin slightly to do so.  “I remember when you barely reached my shoulder,” she remarked, eyes tightening.

His shoulders slumped.  “It seems like a lifetime ago, now.  So much has happened since we first met.”

“We certainly have less pesky dragons to deal with.”

Quirking an eyebrow at her, he said, “You’re avoiding my question.”

What did he want her to say?  She had locked herself in the tallest tower in the keep to avoid the stares boring into the back of her head.  Regardless of of status or business, everyone watched her unabashedly, waiting for the daughter of the sea to stab a knife in her mother’s back.  They hid their whispers behind cupped hands but she could still hear every word. Did the Crimson Forest drive her mad? Was she bringing the Horde to Kul’tiras?  Is she coming to seize the admiralty?

“Her mere presence spits on the graves of our soldiers,” one nobleman had remarked to his wife, unaware that the hedge maze carried his voice.

It was about that time that she had given up on reading for the day, unable to focus with so much fog blanketing her mind, and retreated to the safety of high ground.

“Aunt Jaina?” Anduin gently prompted.

The words startled her out of her reverie.  “Why do you keep calling me that?” she snapped.

If she had used that tone on Varian, he would have snarled in rage, but this was not Lo’Gosh she was speaking to.  Instead of looking angry, or lashing out, he let his gaze fall to the floor, whispering, “Sorry.”

She sighed deeply through her nose.  “No, I shouldn’t have been cross.  _ I’m _ sorry.”

“You’ve been dealing with a lot,” he replied simply, shrugging.  “I understand getting frustrated easily.”

_ You’re just better at dealing with it _ , she thought wryly.  Out loud, she only said, “Still…”

“Lady Katherine told me what happened in the Crimson Forest.  How you were exiled, and… everything after that.”

It had been three days since she had returned from that wretched place.  Even the mere notion of it made her mouth run dry. She swallowed thickly, trying to steady her nerves, but she no longer shivered from just the cold.

“Velen taught me to breath in for five counts, hold for two, then release for five,” Anduin informed her.

Why did that kid have to be so damn perceptive?  Nevertheless, she attempted, managing a tremulous three counts in before letting it all out in a rush.  When she tried again with the same results, she let out an agitated groan.

“It admittedly, ah, takes a little while to get the hang of.”  He scratched his temple with an index finger.

If only they didn’t have to.  “The beast there conjured up images of my failures.  They ripped open quite a few old wounds,” she confessed.

“Failures?” he asked.

“All that I threw away in the name of peace.  All that I shunned in my anger. My father’s life, the Kirin Tor…”  She screwed her eyes shut, wishing that she could attribute their stinging to the wind.

“But, you never--”

“I did, Anduin,” she growled.  Taking a deep breath, she tried to keep her tone milder.  “I did a lot of things I regret.”

“What would you change?” he wondered.

The question took her aback.  What…  _ would _ she have changed, if she could?  Would she have stopped the Horde from killing her brother?  Her father? Looking back, she thought herself so naive for ever trusting Thrall and his lot.  If she had prevented Thrall from establishing the Horde, maybe Garrosh never would have become Warchief.  Her blood turned to ice and her stomach clenched as she wondered if she could have been sitting by the fire with Kinndy and Pained right now, talking about ley lines or gossiping about the citizens of Theramore.  Maybe Anduin would have joined them, walking tall with no chronic, crippling pain, no prosthetic where his right leg should have been, no flashbacks or nightmares or panic attacks. She wouldn’t have even had the chance to fail the Kirin Tor. And yet… 

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“When I first realized I lost my leg,” he began softly, “I was scared.  And depressed. And angry. Velen talked to me at length about it. He said that the past isn’t meant to be changed, no matter how badly we want to.  All we can do is forge ahead, and try to make sure that the future is better.”

“That man loves to talk,” she groused.

“Sometimes it makes sense.”

“Sometimes, but I don’t see how that’s supposed to help anyone cope.  There are parts of the past that can’t be accepted.”

She held up a hand, and whatever words he was about to say died in his throat.  “I know it’s not healthy to hold onto the past so tightly. Believe me, I’ve tried to reconcile it.  Some wounds just don’t want to heal over.

“There’s been so much hate in my heart for so long.  As much as I may want to let it go… it’s a large part of me.  I’m not quite sure what I am without it. Maybe I’m nothing.” The last part was barely a whisper, her throat too tight to manage anything else.

Anduin’s face was consumed with horror.  “Aunt Jaina… you’re not _nothing_. You’re… a bookworm.  And a powerful mage. You’re an advisor to kings and queens, and an advocate, and you care so deeply about the causes you serve.  You’re one of the strongest people I know, and--”

She looked at him as he abruptly choked up.  There were tears glittering in his eyes. “You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mother, and I love you like one, and I want to help you get better, so we can discover all the other things you are, too.”

Words failed her.  For a long moment, she simply stared at him, eyes wide in shock.  Her lower lip trembled, tears snaking their way down her cheeks.

When she pulled him into an embrace, she managed to say, “I love you, too, Anduin.”

The two held onto one another, letting out all the pain and sorrow in their hearts.  No words could have done justice to what they both felt in that moment, but it wasn’t as if they could have succeeded in speaking them through their sobs.  The world had never been kind to them, but they could be kind to each other, and maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> not gonna lie i started crying while writing this. i wanted to write something about jaina because i love all this new content my queen is getting. i feel like jaina feels responsible for parts of anduin's trauma because she wasn't able to stop garrosh and the horde and then abandoned him the same day his dad died so i wanted to convey that. she has a lot to work through and i hope this expansion does her justice.


End file.
